Real Madrid's Midfield Dilemma: Can Thiago Pitarch Step Up?

Real Madrid spent the summer staring at the same question from every angle: do they actually have enough in midfield? The club answered it with their actions when they went after Rodri. That pursuit fizzled out, and in the end Madrid turned back to what they already had – plus a slightly rebranded Bernardo Silva, whose role in white has drifted away from pure playmaker and closer to a central midfielder than he ever was at City.

The doubts have not gone away. They’ve simply walked onto the pitch.

Old problem, new season

As reported by Spanish newspaper AS, the competitive season has barely begun and the same fault lines are already cracking open. The Inter game laid it all bare. Madrid never really got their hands around the tempo. They chased more than they dictated, reacted more than they controlled.

Afterwards, Fede Valverde lifted the curtain a little. José Mourinho, he said, had been barking the same instruction all night: keep the ball, slow the game, take the sting out of it. It never materialised. Inter ran, Madrid followed. The plan stayed on the whiteboard.

This isn’t a one-off. It’s the continuation of a problem that already stretched through last season.

The surprise fix: Thiago Pitarch

Back then, the solution came from an unexpected corner of Valdebebas. Arbeloa, forced to improvise, turned to a name few had pencilled into the first team: Thiago Pitarch, still officially a Castilla player at the time.

Pitarch didn’t just make up the numbers. He forced his way into the XI, piling up more than 800 minutes. Mourinho trusted him in the biggest of nights: both legs against City in the Champions League round of 16, then the first leg of the quarter-final against Bayern. For a kid with a reserve-team registration, that is not window dressing. That is responsibility.

He handled it. Calm on the ball, unfazed by the shirt, unbothered by the noise. For a while, he looked like the unexpected answer to Madrid’s control issues.

This season, the picture is far less clear.

Stuck between squads

Pitarch’s role has drifted into a grey zone. A departure was seriously on the table in the summer, a logical step for a player needing minutes. Then came an untimely injury at the start of pre-season. Any possible move died on the spot.

So he stayed. Still registered with the reserves because there are no free squad places. Still treated as a first-team player inside the club. And now armed with a new contract that underlines that status.

On paper, that sounds like progress. In reality, it sets up the hardest part of his career so far: actually finding space to play.

Mourinho’s system doesn’t help. The Portuguese coach leans on a 4-2-3-1 that chains Pitarch to the double pivot. It’s a brutal neighbourhood. Valverde, Tchouaméni, Camavinga and Bernardo Silva are all crammed into that same corridor. On a depth chart, Thiago sits fifth out of five.

He only has two things to fight with: the flashes of quality he showed last season and a fearlessness that meant the Bernabéu lights never shrank him.

Mourinho’s verdict: first-team or nothing

Mourinho has barely used him in recent weeks, and the injury is a big reason why. But the coach has not forgotten what the youngster produced. Nor what he believes is coming.

His opinion of Pitarch is blunt and generous. “He is not a player to feature in the Castilla category, but rather a first-team player and I like him a lot. He has qualities that I like very much, and when he is fully fit he will be part of the group, and then there will be minutes waiting for him to play, as he has very high quality.”

That is not the language of a coach closing a door. It’s a challenge.

Mourinho wants more from him physically, especially for the defensive demands he places on his midfielders. And he has told Pitarch that to his face, in the typically sharp Mourinho way: “The only thing I tell him is that his leg muscles are like mine, and he needs to add two kilograms there through work.”

The message is clear. The path is not.

Madrid spent the summer wondering whether they needed a new midfielder. One answer might already be in the building. The question now is whether Thiago Pitarch can turn Mourinho’s words, and his own potential, into something that actually changes the way this team controls a game.